It’s Black Friday and Morgan Spurlock has had just about enough shopping. More than enough. “I’ve unplugged, man,” Spurlock told the Associated Press last year. “I’ve started to walk away from this idea of getting credit card after credit card to get people more gifts.”

And, being a filmmaker, (Super Size Me, 30 Days) Spurlock made a movie about walking away. It’s called What Would Jesus Buy? and it’s available on DVD (or streaming on Netflix if you drive a PC).

“We’ve been convinced that the way to show your love for someone is by what you buy them, by what the price tag is, by what is represented on the receipt. And that’s the wrong message to send out,” Mr. Spurlock told the AP.

The right message for Morgan Spurlock may not go down easy with the pious. A review of his movie, What Would Jesus Buy? in Christianity Today concludes: “Yes, it’s condescending. Yes, it cheapens Christianity. But the whole argument of the film is that our commodity culture has already cheapened Christianity.”

What would Jesus Buy? strikes a chord with some like Adbusters co-founder Kalle Lasn, who champions the annual Buy Nothing Day the Friday after U.S. Thanksgiving (and the next day worldwide):

If you dig a little past the surface you’ll see that this financial meltdown is not about liquidity, toxic derivatives or unregulated markets, it’s really about culture. It’s our culture of excess and meaningless consumption — the glorified spending and borrowing of the past decade that’s at the root of the crisis we now find ourselves in.

Treehugger’s Lloyd Alter isn’t so sure: “My first reaction was ‘nice idea, if you don’t work in a shop.’ We have noted earlier that we like promoting eco-retailers and designers who need customers, not boycotts.”

New York Times columnist Lisa Belkin feels stuck in the middle:

I am saddened and sobered by the troubled economy. I understand that each purchase not made this season threatens the job of someone who would be producing or selling that purchase. And for too many families there was nothing left in the budget to trim, so its not just extra presents that are going, but food and rent and gas.

But as one who will be battening the hatches and pruning back holiday spending this year, there is something about it that feels right, as well. Isn’t this careful and sober place — where we buy what we need, with a small nicety on the side — where we should have been all along?

Morgan Spurlock remains philosophical, telling the AP: “People on both sides of the fence can agree on one thing, and that’s that the holiday’s gotten out of control.” The holiday in question, of course, is the one celebrating the coming of the Son of God to reclaim humankind on behalf of the creator. If that’s not what you think Black Friday is all about then…well, we have figure that out household by household don’t we…

Here’s the trailer for Morgan Spurlock’s buying frenzy spoof, What Would Jesus Buy? Enjoy…